The swimming wounded.

The second meeting of Fish Club took place last Sunday. Unfortunately there were fewer anglers in attendance than the first meeting with just new member Ryan available and turning up to join me at Dunbar to fish for flounders. Not what I'd hoped for but on the bright side that's now two new anglers I've met through starting the group and if I get someone new coming along to every session the group will grow and hopefully so will the numbers attending future outings. Anyway, it was nice to meet up with Ryan for the first time and we were soon chatting and fishing away. The fishing was pretty slow  though until Ryan decided to give drop shotting a try for the first time and caught a small flounder on his first cast using the method. After that fish bites were pretty much non existent however so we headed around to the old harbour to try there. There wasn't much happening there either so I switched to a Carolina rig and slowly moved it along the bottom close to the harbour wall hoping to catch a blenny. Eventually I got a decent bite, hooked the fish that had decided my half section of Angleworm was a tasty snack and got a pleasant surprise when it emerged from the depths into view.

My first viviparous blenny from the old harbour, in daylight and on a lure, well Gulp anyway.

It had the end part missing from its tail and it was a fairly fresh looking wound but the fish was still a lively little slimy chap.

Quite pleased with my slippery bonus fish we carried on fishing and eventually the sun managed to start poking through the clouds. Its arrival in the sky seemed to wake up the flounders and pretty soon we were both catching lots of them on drop shotted Angleworm and Isome and having fun watching some of them appear from the bottom to investigate what was disturbing the bottom and then swimming up to grab our scented worm like offerings.

A second small flounder for Ryan.

My first few flounders were fairly small too but good fun on my light game tackle.

Yet another small flounder for Ryan. We were both hopeful we would catch some slightly bigger one.

As the afternoon went on the clouds thinned out even further and as the tide dropped the sunlight and clear water meant we could see a few bigger ones moving around on the bottom. It was quite exciting watching them appearing from the silt and shooting over to attack. One flounder in particular had a very aggressive go at my drop shot lead before suddenly turning and lurching up to attack my white Isome which it engulfed rather quickly, hooking itself in the process. 

A nice fish and the second one of the day to be sporting an injury. This time it was older and well healed around a chunk that had been removed from one side.

Not long after this Ryan caught a flounder that a mouth shaped abrasion on both sides of it and we discussed the tough eat or be eaten life of some fish. As the water levels dropped out of the old harbour we moved around to the bridge and standing on it watched a few flounders as they swam out of the old harbour and into the deeper water of the main harbour. I spotted a larger one that was quite well camouflaged sitting motionless on the flat concrete bottom and dropped my rig down in front of it. Being honest I was just trying to get it to move so some people standing next to us could see it but it obligingly came up, took my Isome and was soon being more closely inspected by some of the interested spectators. It was rather amusing and a nice way to end the session.

It was a really nice day by the time we left and truth be told I think we both would have liked to have fished for a bit longer if we could have but we had to go.

So a slow and rather grey start to the day had turned into a fantastic bright sunny flounder filled session and I think it's safe to say Ryan is now a convert to drop shotting for flounder. I enjoyed his company and it was a pleasure fishing with him. Hopefully he can come to Fish Club meetings on a regular basis. The next one will be on the 28th of June and I have a session targetting wrasse in mind if the conditions are right so if you fancy coming along please get in touch.

Tight lines, Scott.